Sunday 9 April 2017

Algernon Swift at Bristol Waterstones









Thank you to everyone who came to the event for Algernon Swift on Friday at Waterstones in Bristol Galleries.  It was a really lovely event made special by the excellent performers, poet Melanie Branton, song and dance man John Mead, and Angie Belcher’s teenage alter-ego, Odious Vex. Here are some photos of the fun we had (only spoiled for a moment by the unexpected appearance of Miserable Malcolm). I particularly enjoyed reading aloud from The Life and Times of Algernon Swift, and eliciting some groans for the puns. Thanks too to Nick Lovell and Clive Oseman for reading at the Open Mic’ and to Edouard at Waterstones for hosting it!



Melanie Branton
Melanie Branton performed some of her excellent poetry, including the romantic possibilities of dating parts of speech and a very disturbing episode of Midsomer Murders.

Unusually for a poetry event, we had some song and dance from the wonderful John Mead of the Unravelled Commedia Company.  If you'd like to find out more about this sort of thing (and what's going on here) please visit their FaceBook page.

Song and dance man, John Mead

Unfortunately there was also an unwelcome interruption from Miserable Malcolm, who didn't seem entirely positive about Bill's book.


Open Mic'ers Clive Oseman and Nick Lovell (who run Swindon's wonderfully named "Ooh Beehive!" night):








After which, Angie Belcher's teenage alter-ego Odious Vex set us all straight with poems like Drugs are Bad (including Legal Highs), War is Bad and I Love Lucy.







And here I am reading (and gesturing) from The Life and Times of Algernon Swift:





Big thanks to Jodie Marks for the pictures!

Next stop for Algernon Swift: I will be reading a 15 minute passage from the book for a broadcast for the Resound Festival in Stroud next Saturday (15th April) in the Line Gallery at Stroud Valleys Artspace. This starts at 2.15 and will take about half-an-hour. If you’d like to be part of the small audience, please drop me a line.

Saturday 1 April 2017

Hopeless, Maine, Bookshop Events, Radio and Lighthouse Keepers

This week I was a guest on the Hopeless, Vendetta, a blog off-shoot of Tom and Nimue Brown’s Gothic manga extravaganza, Hopeless, Maine, recently published by Sloth Comics.
Here is the cartoon I drew for it, featuring (as usual) two lost souls going nowhere.
























Thanks to all who came to the book launch for TheLife and Times of Algernon Swift at the Arnolfini Bookshop on 16th April.  Here is a picture of me signing books among cards and artists.

Photo by Ferdie Keeling











The day after, I went on BBC Radio Bristol and talked with Richard Lewis about all things pun-related and what I was doing when I was a one-year-old. Here’s a link on BBC iPlayer (available until 15th April). The interview starts 1 hour 35 minutes in.
The next Algernon Swift  event is in Bristol this Friday (7th April) at Waterstones in the Galleries.  It’s a free event and starts at 7pm. Here is a link with some more information.

















As well as me reading excerpts from the book (and describing the drawings) this will feature poetry from two of my favourite poets, Angie Belcher and Melanie Branton, and old fashioned song and dance (with a topical slant) from the excellent  John Mead (who I recently encountered at the Lansdown Cabaret in Bristol).  There may also be some mystery guests, plus an Open Mic’, so it promises to be a very entertaining evening.

And lastly, here is a podcast of me chewing the fat with Jo Leahy, Jonny Fluffypunk and Jessie James, talking about lighthouse-keepers and their problems mostly, as part of the new Resound Festival starting in Stroud this April. There is a host of excellent podcasts already gathering on their homepage here.